


In the Wait

by finch (afinch)



Category: 1984 - George Orwell
Genre: Queer Themes, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2011-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-28 02:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/pseuds/finch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything is ironic, if you think about it hard enough, until your brain belongs to Big Brother, who loves you, and so irony is the atoms in the air, and my thoughts in your head, and your lack of absolute sanity.</p><p>Have some queerness in your dystopia. Or don't. O'Brien is a tricky little devil, who only tells the truth never of the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Wait

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raedbard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raedbard/gifts).



Aaronson was ironic. Not ironic in that sense, but ironic in her name. His name. Her name. With Big Brother, did it really matter? Who was she born and who was he born to? Facts not in evidence. Facts that have never been in evidence. Facts, that, were they in evidence and had they ever been, would still be largely irrelevant. Ironic, but irony didn't really exist, not anymore, and it was interesting how he had made it happen, how her ideologies had gotten the better of him and she led a revolution that killed her, and him, and you, and me.

Rutherford, on the other hand, was exactly the prick you expected him to be. He was sallow, and that was about the nicest thing one could say about Rutherford. Just like with Aarondaughter, who was the un-son her-him, Rutherford had been some-one's son. Always. Never that anyone would know, of course, but his existence was far easier to ground into his own head than most others. He'd had a mother - everyone had a mother - and that was all there was to it. Maybe she hurt him, beat him, kicked him. Maybe she loved him more than anyone has every loved a child. Most likely she did both at the same time. It's possible. Rutherford's ironies - if we can call them that - were in the people around him, never him.

That leaves Jones, and I suppose you want something lyrical about Jones too. If I said Jones was just the guy who went along with the plan, what would you think of that? If I said nothing about him and his parents and growing up and existing. If all I said was that he was there, would that be enough for you? Well, fuck, that's all you're getting, that's all there is.

The story. There isn't much to the story of them and how they fell. Hell, we could say whatever we wanted to about them, and the world would believe us, would believe me. I'm O'Brien, of course the world believes me. Fuck. Aaronson the Ironic wanted a world without boxes - that's how he phrased it - a place where gender and identity mattered, but not in the same way they matter now. She was the crazy one of the bunch. The one with the biggest ideas. It was his idea, you know, to stage a revolution. But I said that already, up there, how he led a revolution that killed him, and her, and you, and me.

Not me. I'm not dead, not yet. I've beaten the game. That was the problem with Rutherford, actually, was he knew how to play the game, and thus, beat the game. He knew how to twist at the pining of Aaronson and his hopes for a better world for her and everyone else, and convince him that a world without boxes meant that she needed to draw some pretty big ones for everyone else. Looking back, it was a bit odd how she agreed, but that's not what I'm delving into. He was playable and got played and fell.

Jones started it, ironically enough. Irony. Funny word. Everything is ironic, if you think about it hard enough, until your brain belongs to Big Brother, who loves you, and so irony is the atoms in the air, and my thoughts in your head, and your lack of absolute sanity. That's ironic. Jones didn't mean to, telling about what he and Aaronson were up to, in the room with no screen. Jones didn't know he was signing their death warrants. Jones, who'd hardly lifted a finger.

Hell, maybe none of this is right, maybe I'm just fucking with you, because you ask too many questions, and I'm not ready to take you to Room 101, yet. You ever think of that, the boy with no-name, the sometimes person, the boy-girl lost in his own skin. At least you've got that. You've got that part worked out, far as I can tell. Maybe not. I don't know all your thoughts, I don't get entirely inside your head. Lot of this is guesswork. I could tell you anything about the queer Aaronson, and you'd listen, and I'd be God, because, hell, I'm O'Brien. What else would I be but God?

Aaronson. Little fucker. Literally. Ah, another word you think is misused all the time. Guess what? I don't care about your hangups on words. The words are what I say they are. Literally, he fucked all the time. In the room with no screen, and she was doing it with Rutherford, the hard-core, the manipulator, who only felt sorry for him in the final few moments of their lives. Pathetic. Very pathetic. Rutherford might have been a master at playing this game, but he was still playing, and could be played.

Jones I'm over. There isn't really much else to tell about him, except that didn't know nearly as much as he told us that he did, but that didn't matter, since the other two broke under torture. Ah, Room 101. Yes, you know it, and you're terrified of it. Good. You should be. Aaronson wasn't queer and Rutherford wasn't the mastermind. Jones, well, still over him. Sometimes I like to pretend fun things about Aaronson and Rutherford, them being lovers. Lovers makes the story so much more _interesting_ doesn't it? Makes what happened so much more tragic, and you're dying to hear that, that their deaths were tragic, yet beautiful.

The real world doesn't work like that. They might have had the ideas, but they didn't have the guns to implement them. Others did, took their plan, and reworked it a bit. They didn't like that. So what else was there to do, but solidify our power and kill 'em?

Or maybe Aaronson really was some she who was a he, or was it the other way around? I'm fucking with you, isn't that all that really matters? Only a matter of time before you're ready. While we wait, smoke? Maybe I'll even tell you the real Aaronson, Rutherford, and Jones. Maybe I won't. Maybe you'll never actually know, except the truth I tell you when you walk out of Room 101, and that's all. The end. Game over. You love my truth.

You love Big Brother.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to pie_is_good for the fast beta!


End file.
